Leadership as an emergent feature in social organizations: insights from a laboratory simulation experiment

Luis Curral, Pedro Marques-Quinteiro, Catarina Gomes, Pedro G. Lind

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

11 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Recent theoretical contributions have suggested a theory of leadership that is grounded in complexity theory, hence regarding leadership as a complex process (i.e., nonlinear; emergent). This article tests if complexity leadership theory promotes efficiency in work groups. 40 groups of five participants each had to complete four decision making tasks using the city simulation game SimCity4. Before engaging in the four decision making tasks, participants received information regarding what sort of leadership behaviors were more adequate to help them perform better. Results suggest that if complexity leadership theory is applied, groups can achieve higher efficiency over time, when compared with other groups where complexity leadership is not applied. This study goes beyond traditional views of leadership as a centralized form of control, and presents new evidence suggesting that leadership is a collective and emergent phenomenon, anchored in simple rules of behavior.

Original languageEnglish
Article numbere0166697
JournalPLoS ONE
Volume11
Issue number12
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Dec 2016
Externally publishedYes

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2016 Curral et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

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